KISS: Keep It Simple, Sociopath

by C. A. Matthews

It’s been really hard keeping up with what’s been happening recently in Syria and the rest of the world. Then I remembered a wise old saying, and I sat down and started listing the facts, just the facts. Here they are as simple as I can explain them:

First off, the US and its Western allies once called the group now in charge of Syria “terrorists”, but now we’re calling them “moderates” and forgiving them for all the torture and extrajudicial killings that they did. Their leader, Muhammad Al-Jawlani, used to have a $10 million reward on his head for being a terrorist with an organization formerly known as Al Qaeda. (Never heard of them before, have you?) But now we’re supposed to ignore his past because he turned in his turban for a Western-styled suit…

Yeah, that’s it. It’s sort of like a woman becoming a virgin again after twenty years of marriage and several children.

Second thing, we’re told that this recent invasion of Syria is not a land grab. Pay no attention to the Israeli military (using American provided weapons) bombing Syria 480 times in 48 hours because (in their words) the “moderates are terrorists” and can’t control their own people to Israel’s satisfaction. (But Al-Jawlani wears a suit now—doesn’t that make everything all right?) 

 

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"The sickness of capitalism is that if you kill a person with paperwork, it simply doesn't count." -- Val for Nevada on X https://twitter.com/ValforNevada/status/1864436943955873970 

 

The Sickness of Capitalism

by C.A. Matthews

No doubt, it will be called the surveillance video of the century. Well, no one who is working class—or even upper middle class or whatever is the term for those who aren’t quite in the top one-percent of earners in the US—is going to forget it. If you have ever paid private health insurance premiums, co-pays, and deductibles, or filed for bankruptcy because of medical debt, or if you or your loved ones have ever been denied necessary health care by a private insurance company, then you will understand why so many are cheering over the gunning down of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson on a Manhattan sidewalk.

Thompson was a man already under suspicion of insider trading by the Department of Justice, a man who made well over $10 million yearly, a man whose estimated net worth was estimated at approximately $42.9 million as of February 16, 2024, according to Wallmine.com, and a man whose corporation, UnitedHealthcare, has become notorious for its 32% denial of claims, with a market cap of $561.15 billion, the world’s 16th most valuable company by market cap according to CompaniesMarketcap.com.

So, yeah, it couldn’t have happened to a “nicer” guy.

The internet is full of some of the best memes and quotes ever this week. The shooter is being called the “Adjuster” by some, since he acted as a “claims adjuster” of sorts. The upside of all this hullabaloo is that after a lull we’re once again seeing a familiar hashtag: #MedicareForAll

It doesn’t seem all that long ago that I was actively volunteering for a presidential candidate who touted Medicare For All... 

 

To learn who this candidate was and more about the sickness of capitalism, please read the rest of this article by clicking on this Substack link: https://therevolutioncontinues.substack.com. There you'll see related article and video links, all the graphics, and be able to leave comments. You can also subscribe and receive the weekly blog post in your email box. 

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Escaping the Nightmare

by C.A. Matthews

This beautifully produced short video (above) spoke to me this week. Watch it and see what I mean.

Entitled Escaping the Duopoly Nightmare: A Tribute to the Fearless! the video gives one hope that there is a large enough percentage of Americans out there who actually “get it” and who are escaping the nightmare of the faux US democracy established and maintained by the billionaire oligarchs. These folks aren’t crying into their beers/coffee cups. They’re making plans on how they’ll fight back, and it could lead to building a strong alternative party that represents the working class, not the one-percent, in the near future.

To put this in the vernacular: Smart voters ain’t buying into the rich dudes’ lies anymore. They’re taking their business elsewhere. They’re starting their own workers’ party, far away from the brain dead, bought-off Red and Blue MAGAts. They’re going to put the people in charge, not the corporations.

Amen to these brave visionaries! Could the Revolution be just around the corner?

Meanwhile across the globe, brave Pakistanis are escaping from a nightmare not of their own making...

 

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Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree. —Martin Luther

What Are You Thankful For?

words and holiday parade photos by C.A. Matthews

About this time of the year in the good ol’ USA there comes a national holiday that pretty much is celebrated by all Americans (except for Jehovah Witnesses, of course). It seems a benign enough harvest-time holiday with no overtly religious overtones, but with some covertly religious ones for those who partake. Americans of all persuasions and socio-economic backgrounds celebrate this holiday, with or without help from their local food pantry or soup kitchen.

This national holiday is called “Thanksgiving.” It was supposedly the brain child of English colonists who invited the local Native Americans over for a grand meal in thanks for the Native’s assistance they unwittingly gave their white invaders. If it hadn’t been for the kindness of the Native Americans, the English colonists would have completely died off their first winter at the Massachusetts Bay colony. Later, the Natives would come to regret their good manners when the Europeans stole their land and passed small pox on to them, but white historians conveniently leave out all those unpleasant details.

Instead, historians have chosen to emphasize the happier aspects of the Thanksgiving feast—good food, togetherness, neighborliness, and sharing leftovers with anyone who’ll take them off your hands so you’re not stuck eating turkey for the next three weeks. These aspects make it a pretty nifty national holiday to celebrate in the short, dark, and damp days of late autumn in North America—as others called “Canucks” also celebrate this harvest festival about a month earlier. (Apparently they forget the calendar includes months after October.) Thus, border families of mix American-Canadian heritage have the chance to eat two Thanksgiving dinners, with the added bonus of putting on enough blubber to survive the arctic onslaught of the coming winter.

While everyone sits around the dinner table feasting on the traditional meal of roast turkey and stuffing—which is no where close to the supposed original Thanksgiving feast of venison and seafood—guests are supposed to share what they are thankful for in their lives. This is when the problems begin.

In presidential election years, Americans with big mouths not filled with mashed potatoes and gravy might make mention of how thankful they are their favorite presidential candidate won the recent contest. Others, who are not feeling quite so happy about this outcome, will then attack the sanity of the first party and call them some rather nasty names. The atmosphere of Thanksgiving thankfulness will immediately evaporate. Thrown bread rolls and tossed turkey drumsticks can be turned into semi-lethal weapons if calmer heads don’t quickly prevail.

This is why on pain of having a pumpkin pie topped with whipped cream thrown in their face that most Americans do their best not to bring up politics at Thanksgiving. No one is more thankful than the hosts of the traditional meal that politics have been left where they belong—in the trash can out back—before entering their home. With dinner table small talk limited to sports, the latest Hollywood blockbuster, and how everyone will go about losing all the weight they’ll gain from gorging on turkey and several desserts, the day proceeds much more smoothly than things did ultimately between the Native Americans and the English colonists.

So, here it is another US presidential election year and Thanksgiving approaches. This begs the question for Americans and Non-Americans alike: What are you thankful for?

 

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Money Can’t Buy Me…?

 

Money Can’t Buy Me…?

by C.A. Matthews

I'll give you all I've got to give
If you say you love me too
I may not have a lot to give
But what I've got I'll give to you
I don't care too much for money
Money can't buy me love –Paul McCartney & John Lennon

The Beatles are more than the greatest pop group in history. They are the proletariat’s philosophers. Their catchy song lyrics often express deep truths that aren’t easily ignored. Their 1964 hit Can’t Buy Me Love is still a favorite of many.

Wonder why? Could it be because it’s true? Sure, money can buy all the accouterments of love, but it can’t buy the real deal. One has to earn another person’s love and respect or else… It’s not really love, now is it?

The same could be said for buying votes.

Kamala Harris spent upwards of $1 billion dollars on her ill-fated “Joy” campaign. She still owes some $20 million to her campaign workers and some of the celebrities she bribed to endorse her. Beyonce’s asking price was $10 million—and that didn’t even include her giving a concert, which was a huge disappointment to the many fans who came to a Harris event just to see Beyonce perform. Oprah Winfrey’s production company had an asking price of a cool $1 million. That’s a lot of incentive to “love” a candidate, isn’t it?

Did giving tons of money to these celebrities truly earn their love and respect for Harris? The Beatles had it right, don’t you think?

So, what did Harris get for her record-breaking spending spree on the campaign trail? Well, it didn’t get her the White House...

 

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The Mystery of the Missing Votes

A Terrible Tale of Voter Suppression. (Plus "A Letter to Kamala.")

by C. A. Matthews

Living with a mystery series writer (check out my husband’s Veronica Nash series), I watch many (and I mean many) mystery movies, TV series, and the like. I’ve never been the biggest fan of mysteries since some feature “copaganda” with their noble-minded police detective sleuths showing off how damn smart they are. Putting that fault aside, I watch mysteries in order to learn more about how to plot a story as well as learn interesting science facts that occasionally pop up. I find an interesting twist in the tale or an outright surreal ending (like in a Twilight Zone episode) enjoyable, too.

Unfortunately, many mysteries are poorly plotted. If I can guess “whodunnit” within the first ten minutes of a mystery movie/TV show (or first chapter of a novel), then it’s safe to say it’s crap and needs a re-write. I mean, how the heck should anyone figure out the mystery so quickly? Mediocre mysteries are the worse. There’s no use reading the rest of the book or watching the next hour and half of silly red herrings if you know who the murderer/kidnapper/thief is already. I’ve got better things to do with my time.

Which brings me to what I do with my time these days—I try and solve real life mysteries of the political kind. In this season of post-election blues in the US, I submit for your approval the following: The Mystery of the Missing Votes or A Terrible Tale of Voter Suppression.

In New Jersey, Green candidate for Congress Ben Taylor was ahead of his duopoly competitors with 50,000+ votes, but a second later the screen said that Taylor was behind and had only 3,000 votes. What happened to his lead? Did his votes all die a mysterious death? 

 

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Nothing To Say

by C. A. Matthews

This post will go live on November 5. I wrote it a couple of days earlier, so I have no clue about what the outcome of the US elections are, nor do I really care. I’m just glad it’s finally over so we can return to concentrating on more important tasks—such as saving our fellow humans from being butchered by the American imperialist military-industrial complex in order to steal their land and natural resources, and hastening the death of capitalism.

Having said that, I will now explain the sign on the left in my yard:

I got the “heart [love] your neighbor” sign a few months ago from a local group, Neighbor-to-Neighbor. I thought it was a nice idea to promote neighborly love, and so I said I would put one up in my front yard during the months leading up to the election. The idea behind the sign is to help smooth over the “divide” many people are feeling during this particular presidential election season. Several community events were planned, and we were given a list of things to do order to let our neighbors know that there are “no hard feelings” after the winner of the presidential election is announced. Here are some of the tips:

Intentional Acts of Kindness

Let someone go ahead of you in the checkout line

Take trash bins in for a neighbor

Pick up litter on a bike/walking path

Call an elderly neighbor

Offer someone a ride to the store

Recognize one good thing about every person you meet

Not bad ideas on the whole. I’ve done most of these things before, so they aren’t much of a stretch to continue doing , but I find that last tip a real doozy: Recognize one good thing about every person you meet. This suggestion has become particularly challenging to me after these signs popped up in our neighborhood about a half-month before the election:

Yeah… What good thing can I find to recognize in a person or family who displays a sign supporting a blatant genocide enabler such as “Holocaust Harris”? Do I recognize that they haven’t attempted to kill me (yet)? 

To find out more about my dilemma...

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